^r % *"^* .^^ ._ "^ *•-»' .V 




•^ - 
















'. « o ^ ^^ 




_-^^v , V 






O V. * o » 




.<J^'' 






\' 




^/'h. 



.0' 



c 



^-'^S^' »^M 











■^vP«i'^ 



> '.^^m^^' y^-^^ '^m- /X'jm^s ^ 







."^^ 







Hq, 



^^-•^, 















/••J^ 






•-!>>@^/ >' ^ ^-^-i,-. ,«5 



^ P^PER 



CONTAINING 



A STlTEMEJfT AND YmDICATION 



OF 



CERTAIN 



POLITICAL OPINIONS. 



/» 



//., ,...-.. rrc a. 

/I 




\ 




PHILADELPHIA: 

PUBLISHED BY JOHN CAMPBELL. 

1862. 



ADVERTISEMENT. 



This paper is meant for my neighbours and personal friends. 
It may, in the excitement of these times, have a wider interest 
than I now anticipate, and possibly be read by many of my 
fellow-citizens of Pennsylvania. Should it provoke hostile 
criticism, let it at least be understood as telling the truth as 
I most sincerely believe it to be. 

Philadelphia, November, 1862. 



With a strong sense of the duty of reserve in times of 
great public excitement, and the consciousness that a private 
citizen's conduct and opinions are of no interest beyond a very 
limited circle, I venture to make a personal appeal within that 
circle. 

I am glad of the chance of speaking to my personal friends, 
and think it a duty, to my character and to my family, to put 
in a distinct and permanent form a brief and perfectly candid 
statement of my conduct and opinions in relation to the 
troubles of the country. If the irrationalism of the hour should 
soon or ever pass by, and law and good order, as guaranteed 
by the Constitution, and a healthy public opinion be restored, 
this paper may serve as a private memorial of feelings and 
opinions of which my friends will have no reason to be ashamed. 
If not, and our doom of ruin be realized, it will be of little 
moment what I or any one else now think or say. 

As this justification (if I may so describe it) is strictly per- 
sonal, no apology is needed — certainly none to those who are 
interested from familiar and social relations — for referring 
briefly to the past. 

Born and educated in Pennsylvania, my whole active life, 
excepting brief periods of absence in the public service, has 
been passed here. I have no private interests or family con- 
nections within the limits of the Confederate States. Time and 
distance, and latterly the quick corrosion of civil war, have so 
completely worn away the few links which once bound me to 



6 

Southern friends, that I dare call them so no longer. I have 
never, though a wide traveller elsewhere, crossed the border 
except once, thirteen years ago, on^ professional errand to Nor- 
folk and Richmond. I have no correspondent in the South, 
and have, since the beginning of the war, neither written nor 
received a letter to or from any individual there, except one, 
to which special reference shall hereafter be made. The senti- 
ment of local affection and State pride, which is now made 
matter of reproach to those who think as I do, is not a new 
one with me ; and no man can point to any act or opinion of 
my life, public or private, inconsistent with this sense of duty. 

Returning from abroad in the spring of 1859, I took rela- 
tively little part in the Presidential canvass of the next year, 
though feeling a deep interest, for I saw in the future, as clearly 
as I see in the ghastly present, that the triumph of the 
"Republican" party, with its aggressive doctrines and the 
radical and fanatical spirit which animated it, threatened the 
disruption and downfall of the Republic itself. The Chicago 
platform embodied a principle of revolution that has borne 
bloody fruits. There are those near and dear to me who know, 
what few out of my family suspected, that a secret fear — a 
fixed presentiment — of the misery to come, overshadowed my 
mind as early as October, 1860, when the State elections so 
surely foretold the Presidential catastrophe of a month later.- 
I thought then that Mr. Lincoln's election would endanger 
Southern rights and interests and that the South was in earnest. 
I hoped sincerely I might be mistaken. It turns out I was 
not. 

In the anxious interval from the election to the inauguration, 
I was in no position to tempt me to action, or which authorized 
me ,to intrude my opinions on any one. According to my 
'judgment, the President tried to do his duty faithfully. No 
advocate of a coercive policy can fairly blame him. He asked 
of Congress the means of defending the public property, and 
it refused to confer the powers which then everybody thought 
Congress only could authorize or delegate. The idea that any 
necessity could create or confer Executive power was held by 



no one. His reward lias been denimciatiou on all sides, — 
generally denunciation without knowledge or inquiry. His 
consolation must be that he shed no drop of blood, and violated 
neither the written word nor the animating spirit of the Con- 
stitution. By Mr. Buchanan, I never was consulted ; and to 
him, in that interval, I never offered counsel. I wrote more 
than once to the Secretary of State, Mr. Black, and to the 
Attorney-General, Mr. Stanton, receiving replies in most 
instances to my letters; and this correspondence, should it 
ever see the light, will abundantly prove my fidelity to the 
Union, and the thorough sympathy then existing between us. 

On the 17th of January, 1861, I took part in a town meet- 
ing at the National Hall in this city, at which a number of 
my most distinguished fellow-citizens spoke. Our object was 
to dissuade and oppose military coercion, and the inauguration 
of civil war by the act of the Federal Government; and never 
was there greater enthusiasm or unanimity manifested than on 
that occasion. There was perfect accord throughout. I did 
not prepare the Eesolutious, though they were altered, and, as 
I then thought, amended by me. One, however, which has-' 
attracted much adverse criticism, was exclusively, in its origin, 
mine. It embodied my opinions when danger of disruption 
was at a distance. It expresses my opinions now, when it is a 
hideous reality. It was adopted with enthusiastic unanimity, 
and is in these words : 

" Resolved, That in the deliberate judgment of the Demo- 
cracy of Philadelphia, and, so far as we know it, of Pennsyl- 
vania, the dissolution of the Union, by the separation of the 
whole South, — a result we shall most sincerely deplore, — may 
release this Commonwealth from the bonds which now connect 
it with the confederacy, and would authorize and require its 
citizens, through a convention to be assembled for that purpose, 
to determine with whom their lot shall be cast; whether with 
the North and East, whose fanaticism has precipitated this 
misery upon us, or with our brethren of the South, whose 
wrongs we feel as our own, or whether Pennsylvania shall 
stand by herself, ready, when occasion offers, to bind together 



the broken Union, and resume her place of loyalty and devo- 
tion." 

If the doctrine of this resolution, — if the assertion in clear 
terms of a local sentiment, and confidence that it alone can 
avail to protect us in the event of permanent dissolution, — if; 
this be treason, then was I, and the thousands who cheered and 
voted for that resolution, guilty. It stated a proposition, 
which I hardly think can be disputed, that the separation, 
once accomplished, of the whole South, or the whole North, or 
the whole West, or the whole East, would radically affect the 
relations of the remaining States. It would dislocate them all. 
It would affect them as to debt, as to taxation, as to repre- 
sentation, as to foreign nations. Federal relations, thus im- 
paired, are practically Federal relations no longer; and each 
State, without any act of its own, but literally by the force of 
circumstances, would be "released," and, being released, falls 
back on its own sovereignty. The resolution asserted this, 
and no more ; and the time will come when it will be accepted 
as truth. I take the responsibility, if it involves censure, of 
having enunciated it. 

From that day to this, I have never attended a political 
meeting or opened my lips in public. 

From Mr. Lincoln's inauguration to the breaking out of 
hostilities, I was among those who silently hoped against hope. 
It was hard work to struggle against the discouragements of 
those days. The Peace Congress, which Pennsylvania, had she 
not been swayed by passion, might have influenced for good, had 
passed away. The Crittenden compromise was rejected. The 
Cotton States, one by one, with a solemnity which should have 
been impressive, had declared themselves out of the Union ; and 
the Republican party prepared to take possession of what was 
left of Federal authority. The snatches of speeches made by 
Mr. Lincoln, as he travelled from his home to the seat of govern- 
ment, enlightened nobody. The misty dreariness of the Inau- 
gural depressed every one; and thoughtful men, at home and 
abroad, stood around, like the puzzled questioners of the Oracle, 
wondering what it really meant. The Cabinet was framed a 



a purely sectional basis, with a controlling influence of extreme 
men. No selection was made from the border States, then as 
truly "loyal" as were New York and Ohio and Pennsylvania 
and Indiana. Whether there was any Ibundation for the 
rumour that Mr. Lincoln intimated a willingness to call a 
citizen of Virginia (Mr. Scott) to his Cabinet I know not; but 
I do know that that citizen, a steady, resolute Union man, now 
lies in his bloody grave at the foot of the Blue Pudge, murdered 
by one of Mr, Lincoln's German soldiers.* So with the diplo- 
matic appointments. All were given to one section, — or, if an 
exception to this occurred, it was that of some abolition Pariah 
from a slave State. Maryland, Delaware, Virginia, North Caro- 
lina, Kentucky, and Tennessee, in the distribution of this high 
patix)nage, were treated as if they had seceded, or could furnish no 
citizen fit to be trusted. With what seems to have been charac- 
teristic fatuity, political proscription was scornfully brandished 
in the face of the doubtful States. Mr. Seward long; ao;o 
boasted that, with his consent, none but anti-slavery men should 
represent this country abroad, — and, for once, he kept his word. 
Mr. Giddings was sent as Consul-General to Quebec! 

Then, in the months of March and April, 1861, came the 
interlude, if the word can be so applied, of the negotiations 
as to Fort Sumter, between the Confederate Commissioners 
and Mr. Seward. And on this point I feel authorized so 
far to interrupt my personal narrative as to adduce some 
unpublished testimony, if for no other reason, in order to do 
justice to a distant friend. I have said that since these troubles 
began, I have had, with a single exception, no correspondent within 

* " The Hon. Robert E. Scott, of Fauquier county, Va., was killeil on 
Saturday, at Frank Smith's, near Greenwich, Fauquier county, Va. A couple 
of Geary's or Blenker's men, supposed to be deserters, having committed 
many depredations through the county, Robert E. Scott, with AVinter Payne 
and others (some ten or twelve), made an attempt to capture them at Smith's. 
In approaching the house, Mr. Scott and liis overseer (Dulany) were shot dead 
by the deserters. The others ran, and Scott's double-barrel gun was after- 
wards broken over him by the villains. Their remains were brought to 
Warrenton on Saturday, with Mr. Scott's gun. Tho deserters escaped." — 
Philadelphia Inquirer, May 8, 1862. 



10 

the limits of the Confederate States. This exception is the 
Honourable John A. CuinpfjoU, of Alabama, formerly a Justice 
of Uk; 8upreme Court of the United States, whom I hope there 
is no offence in describing as an eminent jurist, a sound Union 
man till the policy of the Admini.'itration rendered Unionism 
in the South impossible, and a Christian gentleman. To him, 
having been honoured Ijy his friendship previously, I wrote, 
urging him to retain his place in the Federal judiciary. On 
the 6th of June, 1861 , he answered my letter, and thus re- 
ferred to his own patriotic agency in a last and ineftectual 
effort to keep the peace : 

" I suppose you must have seen my letters to Governor 
Seward in some of the Northern papers. There are some facts 
connected with them that I am glad to have an opportunity to 
communicate to you. When I visited Governor Seward, I had 
not had any communication with General Davis, or any mem- 
ber of the Executive Department. of the Montgomery govern- 
ment. The first knowledge I had of the demand of the Com- 
missioners for recognition, or of Mr, Seward's embarrassment, 
was derived from Judge Nelson and Mr. Seward. I offered to 
write to General Davis and ask him to restrain his commis- 
sioners. 1 supposed that Mr, Seward desired to prevent the 
irritation and complaint that would naturally follow from the 
rejection of the Commissioners in the South, and the reaction 
that their expression (sic) would have at the North. He 
informed me that Sumter was to be evacuated, and that Mr. 
Weed said, 'This was a shar[) and bitter pang, which he' 
(Weed) ' was anxious might be spared to them.' Mr, Seward 
authorized me to communicate the fact of the evacuation to Mr. 
Davis, and the precise object was to induce him to render his 
commirtsioners inactive. I did not antiei[)ate having any other 
interview with Mr. Seward. I supposed that Sumter would be 
evacuated in the course of a very few days, and without any 
other action on my part. When upon the second and third 
interviews with him I found there was to be delay, I con- 
versed with Judge Nelson as to the delicacy of my position, 
and it was at his 8ucrf"^ftt.inn ajid bv his counsel that I agreed 



11 

to be the 'intermediary' until Sumter was evacuated. Neither 
of us doubted that the fort was to be surrendered or aban- 
doned. The first notice of any other disposition was commu- 
nicated on the 10th April, Colonel Lamon, the present Mar- 
shal of the District of Columbia, came to "Washington with 
the family of Mr. Lincoln, I believe. He was with him at 
"Washington in some familiar capacity. He visited Charleston 
in March, obtained access to Sumter, and left the impression 
on the mind of Governor Pickens that he was the agent of the 
Government, engaged in making arrangements for its evacua- 
tion. In the latter part of March, Governor Pickens sent a 
telegram to ascertain what had become of Lamon. I bore this 
to Mr. Seward, and he promised to inquire concerning him. 
His answer was that the President was concerned at any miscon- 
ception of Lamon's words or visit, and desired me to converse 
with him ; that Lamon did not visit Charleston ff)r him, and 
was not commissioned to make any pledge or assurance to bind 
him. Mr. Seward said Lamon would be at the State Depart- 
ment for me to interrogate him. I declined to converse with 
Lamon, and recommended that he (Lamon) should him"self 
write to Governor Pickens to explain the matter. I asked 
Governor Seward about the evacuation of the fort. "Without 
any verbal reply, he wrote : — ' The President may desire to 
supply Sumter, but will not do so without giving notice to 
Governor Pickens.' Upon reading this, I asked if the Presi- 
dent had any design to attempt a supply of Sumter. His 
reply contained an observation of the President. That I pass; 
but he said he did not believe any attempt would be made to 
supply Sumter, and there was no design to reinforce it. I told 
him if that were the case, I should not employ this language, — 
that it would be interpreted as a design to attempt a supply, 
and that, if such a thing were believed in Charleston, they 
would bombard the fort, — that they did not regard the sur- 
render of Sumter as open to question, and, when they did, 
they would proceed to extremities. He left the State Depart- 
ment, I remaining there till his return ; and, on his return, he 
wrote these words : — ' (I am satisfied that) the Government will 



12 

not undertake to supply Sumter without giving notice to 
Governor Pickens.' Tliis excluded the matter of desire, and^ 
with what had taken place, left the impression that if any 
attempt were made it would be an open, declared, and peaceful 
offer to supply the fort, which being resisted by the Caroli- 
nians, the fort would be abandoned as a military necessity 
and to spare the effusion of blood, — the odium of resistance 
and of the evacuation being thrown upon the late Administra- 
tion and the Confederate States. Had these counsels pre- 
vailed, — had the policy been marked with candour and modera- 
tion,— I am not sure that even before this the fruit might have 
been seen ripening among the States in renewed relations of 
kindness and good will, to be followed ere long by a suitable 
political and civil union, adequate to the security of both 
sections at home and abroad. The ideas of union and a 
common country, as applied to all the States, are now simply 
obsolete." 

This simple and precise narrative, introduced here as having 
been addressed to me, is, in the light of what has occurred 
since, a sad revelation, which needs no comment. Neither at 
home nor abroad does the Administration seem to have known 
that the best policy is fair play. I answered Judge Campbell's 
letter soon after its receipt, and, as evidence of my feelings 
and opinions then, I make an extract from my letter. "You 
speak of the united and resolute feeling at the South. Here 
it is very nearly as unanimous, and I can discern no signs of 
reaction. There are (I speak of this city) a few gentlemen who 
hold, as I do, to the doctrine of recognition and peace, but it 
would do neither us nor you any good to say so. There is 
a local sentiment which it is not graceful or proper to defy, 
and minorities must sometimes be silent. What is most pain- 
ful is to be made conscious of the insensibility of those around 
me to the fearful infractions of the Constitution and conceded 
law which are daily occurring. Professors of elementary 
law teach their students that the President may suspend the 
habeas corpus act. Learned and hitherto patriotic n:^n, ad- 
mitting the acts of the President to be wrong, justify the out- 



IS 

rages on the ground of State necessity. This is worse than the 
other; and this it is which aL\rms me as a Northern man 
and one whose lot must be in the North. While, according 
to Mr. Russell, the South Carolina gentlemen want an old- 
fashioned monarchy, we, without talking about it, are sliding 
down into something quite as bad." 

So I wrote a year ago; and there has been a fearful decadence 
since. I received" from Judge Campbell another long and in- 
teresting letter, dated at Warrenton, Virginia, July 27th, five 
days after the Federal defeat at Manassas, from which I extract 
a few lines, on which I need make no remark. " The battle- 
ground of Manassas," he wrote, " is near me, and, both before 
and since the battle, I have been upon it. I came on the field 
early on Monday morning, before sunrise. I carried with me 
water, ice, food, and medicines, to alleviate whatever sufi"ering 
I could find. I found there wounded soldiers from New 
Hampshire, Vermont, Maine, and New York, in numbers, who 
had received no attention. I was told of Minnesota, Wiscon- 
sin, Michigan, and Connecticut men elsewhere." To this letter I 
replied in'a few lines, there being no interdict of friendly cor- 
respondence; but my letter never reached Judge Campbell, 
having come into the possession of the Federal Postmaster at 
Philadelphia, who carried it to Washington, where the seal was 
broken and the letter read. This piece of gratuitous infamy 
was at the time made matter of boasting by the individual 
who perpetrated it. Had one word to or from me ofi'ensive 
to the authorities at Washington been found in this or any 
other manipulated letter, I presume the supervision would 
have been still more boldly avowed and justified. As it is, it 
constitutes an element in the long list of petty and unnecessary 
outrages of which the police-agents of the Federal Govern- 
ment have been guilty. « 

With the exception of my correspondence with Judge Camp- 
bell, every word of which is at the service of the Government, 
I have neither written nor received a letter to or from any 
human being in the Confederate States. 

On the 15th of April, 1861, the news of the fall of Fort 



14 

Sumter reached Philadelphia. The excitement, though great, 
was not such as the political adherents of the Administration 
desired, and, in order to promote it, what was called a " loyal" 
mob was organized, and for two days paraded our streets, visiting 
the houses of those whom it pleased to suspect, and exacting 
some absurd profession of sympathy from the inmates. This 
mob was not dangerous, only because it was contemptible. My 
house was visited during my absence in court, and I knew 
nothing of the danger to my family— if there were any— till it 
was over. A negro servant who had accompanied me to China 
happened to recollect that a flag was stowed away in the house, 
and, on his displaying it, the ruffians who had tried to frighten 
my wife and little children dispersed. I should hardly have re- 
ferred to this miserable attempt at popular disturbance, had not 
leading members of the Eepublican party, stipendiaries of the 
Government, very recently in public expressed their approval 
of what was then done, and advised its repetition. I have 
always regarded this outrage on my home with deep and 
yet contemptuous resentment, and was willing to attribute it 
to the agency of misguided and irresponsible men. 'Now that 
it has been thus endorsed, I desire to be understood as concen- 
trating and intensifying upon those who approve it the feeling 
which I have, I hope, intelligibly described. No one with the 
instincts of gentlemen would have approved of it. 

Since that time fifteen months have elapsed, during which 
there has been a persistent attempt, never for a moment inter- 
mitted, to direct popular prejudice against me. I have neither 
time nor inclination (for it is a most painful retrospect) to refer 
to it, except in this general way. Were the crisis less moment- 
ous, or the perils involved less alarming, one might smile at 
the grotesque variations which my personal and political 
enemies have played on the (^e strain of calumny of my con- 
duct, my motives, my opinions. Not a week, certainly not a 
fortnight, has passed, without my name being printed in pro- 
minent type in connection with every species of disparaging 
imputation, and I have been compelled to see foolish and 
credulous readers believing, willingly or reluctantly, these 



15 

allegations. I have been accused of having correspondence 
■with the Confederate government, or individuals in the Con- 
federate States ; of writing to my friends abroad in favour of 
intervention; of planning treason when alone, or in conjunction 
with other gentlemen, whose names are occasionally introduced 
to relieve the monotony of spite ; of directing the action of the 
Democratic party, to which I am proud to belong, but which, in 
its rising power and increasing' energy, needs no guidance of 
mine ; in short, of exercising all the faculties of a mind fertile of 
mischief to the injury of my country and my State. Little do the 
men who scatter these venomous slanders care how deeply they 
wound the helpless and the innocent, — how they disturb family 
and social relations,and 'embitter the poor residuum of kind feel- 
ing which civil strife permits to exist. They cater to the prevalent 
prejudice of the hour. They fling their share of detraction, 
and are content. The graves of the dead, of those very dear 
to me, are not sacred ; and I have had the feelings of m'erabers 
of my family outraged by insults to the memory of those we 
love in common. The writer of a pamphlet, (for I have had 
elaborate pamphlets printed about me') a person whom to my 
knowledge I have never seen, and whom certainly I have never 
intentionally injured, dragged before the public the character 
of my dead brother, only to give a sting to his vituperation on 
me, and tried to make the widow and children of that brother 
think disparagingly of one whom they are willing to love and 
trust. There has been no remission of paltry and elaborate 
malignity ; and I regret being obliged to say that the diseased 
public, even around my own home, have seemed to enjoy it. 
No word of reply has ever been made by me. No word of de- 
fence has been uttered for me. Persons conducting news- 
papers in Philadelphia who, when we meet, profess to be friendly, 
have either been afraid to utter K)ne word in my justification, 
though they knew the accusations were false, or else have been, 
by jobs and contracts and offices, bought up to connive at 
wrong. At one time last summer (1861) it was positively 
announced in the telegraphic columns, then, I believe, as now, 
under the censorship of the Executive, that I and other well- 



16 

known gentlemen of Philadelphia had been arrested and put 
into a military prison — a rumour calculated to do harm in 
more respects than one, and to alarm distant relatives and 
friends and business correspondents ; and yet to this hour, ex- 
cept in one instance, it has not been contradicted by a single 
Philadelphia editor. So it has been with every thing, till at last, 
as a natural consequence, a state of feeling has been generated, a 
currency of calumny created by these coiners of petty and malig- 
nant falsehood, which makes this reluctant vindication necessary. 

To this torrent of defamation, of suspicion and dark imputa- 
tion, I can oppose but this, — an emphatic and most conscien- 
tious denial of the truth of any one assertion about me, or the 
justice of any accusation against me. If I could make it more 
comprehensive, I should do so. If I could be sure of being 
able to track out each individual slander, I should be glad to 
stamp it with indignant or contemptuous denial. It is impos- 
sible to do this within ordinary limits. I pronounce them false, 
one and all, in the aggregate and in detail. I go further, and, 
with equal emphasis, pronounce them wilfully false. No act, 
■or written or spoken word, can be traced to me during the 
dreary year which has just expired, or at any time, inconsist- 
-ent with reverence for the Constitution, and implicit obedience 
to the law. If there could have been, I do not doubt that long 
■ere this I should have shared the captivity of those who for 
more than a year have been immured, without a hearing or a 
responsible accuser, in the military prisons of New York and 
New England. 

It would be affectation to pretend that acquiescence in this 
great injustice has not required much self-control. I have felt, 
however, that it was useless to contend with popular passion. 
It was better to endure all in silence, waiting for the sure reac- 
tion, sooner or later, when truth shall triumph, and, unless the 
great machinery of constitutional government be torn to pieces 
and we all are crushed in its ruins, the triumphant slanderers 
of to-day shall find a fearful and unforgiving retribution. 

Desiring this exposition of my acts and feelings to be candid 
and complete, I desire to refer to the only exception to the seF 



17 

imposed rule of abstinence from any thing like interference in 
current politics, and to my actual opinions on public affairs. 
I am not ashamed of what I have done, or of the political 
faith I most religiously hold and which I now, for the first 
time, formally express. I rather reproach myself for having 
done so little. But that I have been raised by the active ma- 
lignity of my enemies to the distinction which their slanders 
confer, my opinions would be of interest to no one. As it is, 
I choose, with a full sense of my responsibility, to make them 
known. 

When Mr. Lincoln's first annual message was communicated 
to Congress, it was accompanied, or rather immediately pre- 
ceded, by a huge volume of diplomatic correspondence, chiefly 
from the pen of the -Secretary of State, Mr. Seward. I read 
it with curious expectation and with grievous disappointment. 
The literary execution was, in my opinion, so deplorably bad,— 
its poHtical heresies so redundant,— its effect abroad, it seemed 
to me, so discreditable to our character for scholarship and 
statesmanship, — the ostentatious manner in which, in advance, 
it was given to the public, was so irregular, the sarcasm im- 
plied in its being printed by the English ministry and laid 
before Parliament so palpable, and the self-complacency in 
which, bound and adorned with gilding, it was presented 
to the Pope, as a rare specimen of American political lite- 
rature, to be treasured with palimpsests and missals on the 
shelves of the Vatican, so exquisitely absurd,— that I could not 
resist the temptation to adverse criticism, and wrote and pub- 
lished a "Eeviewof Mr. Seward's Diplomacy,"* prefacing it 

with a sentence of alijiost inspired eloquence from Burke, the 

awful truth of which haunts me every hour and moment that 
I watch and mourn over my country's downfall and dishonor. 
My review was not meant to transgress the limits of fair lite- 



^ * "Secretary Seward, to-day, sent to his Holiness Pius IX. the entire edi- 
tion of the 'History of the State of New York,' consisting of thirteen quarto 
volumes, illustrated with coloured plates and richly bound in turkey morocco 
and gold; also a copy of the 'Diplomatic Correspondence for 1861,' bound 
in like manner."— jV«tc York Herald, April 12. 



18 

rary criticism, and I do not think it did. It was begun in a 
tone of pleasantry, excited by the grotesque rhetoric in which 
the Secretary indulged; though it became graver and graver 
as I advanced through what seemed to me the worse than errors 
of his foreign policy. It was printed privately, and this for 
the obvious reasons that such criticisms are most graceful if 
anonymous ; and for another, which the course of the Adminis- 
tration in " abridging the freedom of speech" made operative, 
— a fear of personal inconvenience. There was throughout 
what I described as "a reserve prompted by considerations 
of personal safety." The success of this pamphlet was very 
great. The reluctance of timid or mercenary publishers to 
circulate it rather stimulated the desire to read it. It was 
extensively read at home and abroad, and quickly passed 
through two large editions, — a proof not so much of its own 
merit, as of the readiness of the popular mind to avail itself of 
free and decorous discussion of public men and public affairs, 
and its restlessness under the shackles which the Government 
was trying to impose on it. The popular heart, sick of the 
wretched trash which, day after day, dribbles through the 
columns of degraded and mercenary newspapers, turned readily 
and gratefully to free thought expressed in plain English. 
Miue, too, was the first of a series of Philadelphia essays 
which soon after appeared, showing that the love of liberty and 
law, and the talent to make it known and felt, was as active as 
ever, at least among my professional brethren. My little 
pamphlet, imperfect as it was, (and no one saw its blemishes 
and short-comings more plainly than its author,) led the way in 
what I sometimes fear was the forlorn hope of a subjugated 
community. It proved the truth might be safely uttered ; but 
it did not abate the bitter animosity which had been directed 
against me. 

In that pamphlet I used these words, which then, as now, 
embody my flickering hope in the dreadful crisis at which we 
have arrived : — " If by any method of war the Government can 
be restored to what it was before this fearful strife began, let 
U8 pray for the early consummation with the least possible 



19 

bloodshed, and with every merciful appliance of pardon and 
amnesty and reconciliation that can be devised ; and if it can- 
not, — if peace and separation be inevitable,— let us hope for the 
coming man amongst ourselves who shall have the mental and 
moral elevation to see the reality soonest, and not shrink from 
its recognition ; who will bend all the energies of a great mind 
(for such must be his) to let the separation be made without 
further convulsion or more ghastly scars." 

More than six months have rolled by since these words were 
written. The methods of war, developed with all the energy 
which money, and men, and evil passions, and individual courage 
supply, have been exhausted. At least a quarter of a million of 
Northern men (without any computation of Southern victims) 
have perished on the field or in the hospital, or returned muti- 
lated to their homes. • Millions of hopeless debt, national or 
local, have been piled up. Private fortunes are tottering on 
the edge of ruin ; industry is palsied, and public bankruptcy 
at hand. Voluntary enlistments are not stimulated by bounties ; 
and the tax-gatherer, and what for want of a better word I 
must call the press-gang, stand ready to start on their relent- 
less errand. More than this : every day dissipates some theory . 
of conquest or submission, widens the awful chasm that sepa- 
rates us from our brethren of the South, and renders more 
probable the stupendous shame of European intervention, — 
not merely recognition, but active military interposition, 
which at once settles the contest to our ignominy, and adds 
bitterness to the cup of degradation, for the surrenders we 
have made to avert it.* 



* Mr, Seward's surrender of the right of police-search to English cruisers 
within ninety miles of Cuba— or, in other words, on the coast of Florida- 
seems to me one of the most unworthy acts of modern statesmanship. When, 
in 1839, Hayti made a slave trade treaty with Great Britain, she reserved her 
own police-control of the narrow seas. We have surrendered ours and got 
nothing in return. In 1817 xMr. J. Q. Adams told Mr. AVilberforce that the 
United States would never, and ought never, to concede this very right of 
search. "The first thing," says Mr. Adams, "I said to him was, 'No; you 
may as well save yourselves the trouble of malting any proposals on that sub- 
ject ; my countrymen, I am very sure, will never assent to any each »r- 



20 

Why, then, in this agony of our republican and American 
faith, may not words of counsel for peace be tolerated? Why 
must they be crushed out as treasonable ? Why should a 
Northern man be mobbed, and insulted, and proscribed, and 
imprisoned, because, with the experience of the bloody past 
and the prospect of the bloodier future, he speaks out in favor 
of peace '/* There are thousands who think exactly as I do, 
who are timid and silent ; men of families dependent or dis- 
persed, capital endangered, industry threatened; fathers and 
mothers who are praying, too often, alas ! in vain, for the re- 
turn of their children from the battle-field and camp; there 
are hundreds of thousands of these, silent sfod anxious now, 
who will rejoice in ecstasy beyond control when the word af 
pacification is spoken and the flag of permanent truce be dis- 
played at Washington and Richmond. I am old enough to 
remember the peace of 1815 and the joy it gave; -but that joy 
was as nothing to what it will be when this sad fraternal strife 
is over and peace be made. It will brighten the crest T)f the 
statesman who accomplishes it. 

These I frankly avow to be my wishes and opinions as to 
the immediate future. They aim at once at Peace ; and when, 
without ofl'ence or disrespect, the questions are put to me 
whether I would give up without a struggle the Union and 
Government which two years ago existed, and how, if the power 
were mine, I would arrange the terms of recognition and sepa- 
ration, I now have no difficulty in answering. 

Tn the first place, I think there has been a struggle with at 
most a questionable success; and if the choice be between the 
continuance of the war, with its attendant suftering and de- 
rangement. The prejudices of my country ai'e so immovably strong on that 
point that I do not believe they will ever assent.' " Yet, through the 
agency of the Administration and a sectional majority of the Senate, we have 
Burrendered it. 

* Such social terrorism, such intolerance of opinion, as we have endured, 
has never before been practised in any community speaking the English lan- 
guage ; and I have thrown into an Appendix to this paper one or two familiar 
examples of free speech in times of civil and foreign war which are not with- 
out interest. 



21 

moralization, certain miseries and uncertain results, and a 
recognition of the Southern Confederacy, I am in favor of Eecog- 
nition,— of course making the abolition party responsible for 
this dread necessity. The blood of the Union is on them. 

If it be a choice between the slow but ultimately successful 
conduct of the war, the subjugation of the Southern States, 
their tenure as mere military provinces, involving of course a 
radical change in the political organization of the triumphant 
North, so as virtually to abrogate State rights, and create a 
centralized domination with all the heresies of the day en- 
grafted, and peaceable recognition, I still prefer Recognition. 

To continue a war to the bitter end of mutual ruin for a mere 
point of honour, or from temper, is mischievously absurd. The 
moment a practical result becomes impossible, as I think it 
now is, the war ought to cease ; and it is the part of true states- 
manship to discern in advance when that moment is coming. 

If the inquiry be further pressed as to how I would arrange 
the terms of pacification and recognition, and adjust the dif- 
ficulty of boundaries and river rights, my answer is, I would 
begin by a cessation of hostilities and armistice for a fixed 
period, not too short. It is the idlest of delusions to imagine 
that in the heat and smoke of actual conflict we can make our 
plans for the future, or even see what that future is likely to 
be. If arms were laid down for a time, there would be a re- 
pugnance to take them up again, whWi of itself would be fevor- 
able to satisfactory .adjustment. This, I am quite aware, is but 
postponing the inevitable decision which sooner or later must 
be made ; and I do not hesitate to say that, dodge and defer it 
as we may, in my opinion the decision — I mean as to limits, and 
possibly as to debt— must be made by the States and their citi- 
zens, acting as they did when seventy years ago they entered 
into the Federal compact. There is no other conceivable mode. 
Maryland and Kentucky, after all, each for herself will have 
to determine where her lot shall be cast, and what her pecu- 
niary liability must be, whether for a share of the Federal or 
of the Confederate debt, or whether to be exempt from both. 
What Maryland and Kentucky do, Pennsylvania and Ohio have 



22 

a right to do. This settles the question of boundaries, and 
nothing else will; and if the decision involves the abandon- 
ment of Washington, and leaving it a monument of what 
was once the capital of a great Republic, be it so. I would 
rather see it a ruin than what it is now,— the garrison town 
of an uncertain frontier, a mere barrier fortress,— a huge en- 
campment of half-tenanted houses, deserted by respectable 
inhabitants, and given up to the occupation of jobbers and 
contractors and disreputable men and women of all descrip- 
tions. These are sad realities, but they must be looked at. Our 
mistake all along has been a reluctance to look realities in the face. 
^ If this were to be the action of the several States as to 
limits, and the two confederacies are, by the voluntary action 
of the States, ultimately established and defined, surely to 
them may be left the really international question as to the 
navigation of the Mississippi. The citizen of the Northwest 
would, it seems to me, be better content, and have greater 
security for unimpeded commerce than he has now, or can have 
for a long time to come, with New Orleans under stern martial ' 
law, held by one belligerent, and Vicksburg by another, and 
when no craft but a ram or an iron-clad gunboat dare venture 
from Cairo to Baton Eouge. One of the first legislative acts, 
yet in full force, of the Confederate government, was to declare 
the peaceful navigation of the Mississippi free to the citizens 
of any of the States on %ts border or the borders of any of its 
tributaries.* 

There was once another hope of peaceful solution, which I 
record here merely to show how anxiously my mind has 
dwelt on this one subject of pacification. It rested, hke all 
else, on the postulates of armistice and recognition. That 
a National Convention, or, more properly. Congress, should 

* The legislation of the Confederate Congress, so far as we are permitted 
to know, presents some contrasts to ours. The privilege of the writ of habeas 
corpus was there suspended according to law, and in specified localities, 
Which the President distinctly announces. The Southern Congress has never 
authorized the issue of five-cent notes with no promise to pay them, or made 
its currency a legal tender. 



23 



convene at Annapolis, or some other central point, under State 
authority, into which the States should come as independent 
powers— South Carolina and Pennsylvania, Virginia and New 
York— and deliberate on matters of common concern, deciding 
them by the processes which regulate the action of such bodies, 
subject to ratification. I once hoped that, could such a body be 
convoked, the pressure from without, to say nothing of the sen- 
timent within, which, when the war is over, and not till then, 
will have free scope, would compel some sort of reconstruction, 
or new Federal relations. The necessity of a provision for 
the public debt. South as well as North, creates an influence 
that might be operative. This, I repeat, was once a hope; but 
it has been washed away in a torrent of blood. 'Still, a National 
Convention, or State Conventions with that view, aught to be 
the watchwords of the conservative North from this time forth. 
Should, however, all appeals to reason and gentleness fail, 
and the iron determination be adhered to at any cost to carry 
on and perpetuate this desolating war, does it occur to any 
mind, as it has like a phantom to mine, what may be the con- 
sequence ? The tides of war— the ebb and flow of victory and 
defeat— are very uncertain. There is a pause in the current 
just now; but who can tell at what moment it may burst upon 
us in aggressive hostilities, made unsparing by the example we 
have set"? The horror and inevitable sufi'ering of such a reverse 
I do not care to allude to. I never rSad the trucTulent rhetoric 
with which our Northern newspapers describe the devastation 
of Virginia without a thought of possible misery here at home. 
And has not the idea occurred to other minds that, in the 
course of events,— the character and tendency of which no one 
can venture to foretell, (for the sealed book of our revelations 
we are not worthy to open,) discontent,— the sense of weari- 
ness and perplexity,— the sinking of the heart at sounds, and 
sights, and news even, of distant woes-, the restlessness of an agi- 
ta^ted and saddened people, may find utterance, and portions of 
the Middle and all the Western States, if not now, by-and-by, 
wearied with sorrow, and shame, and bloodshed, and debt, 
weary of the recruiting sergeant and the tax-collector, of the am- 



24 

bulance of the wounded, and the hearse of the dead, may become 
reconciled to changes more momentous still?* The very Union 
sentiment which has been so sedulously cultivated — the idea of 
indissolubility — of one nation and one government that can- 
not be loosened or broken asunder — may suddenly take this 
form of expression; and the fanatics of the North, who, 
when the day of terror comes, will be glad enough to let the 
South go, may find a government and a Union they little dream 
of. As I write these words of sombre forecast, I am deeply 
impressed by what was recently said in Dublin by the Eoman 
Catholic Archbishop of New York, who is not only, in the cur- 
rent phrase of the day, a loyal man, but has been recently in 
the service of the Federal Government. "In this difficulty," 
sa,id Archbishop Hughes, " the country that was ojie, not more 
than three years ago, is now divided into two, — that is, on the 
battle-field, — but not two in civil order. It is one country still, 
and must and shall be one. No matter what may occur, — no 
matter what the foreign interference, whether inilitary or naval, 
that may destroy the cities round the borders of that country, — 
no matter what may occur, the question must end as I have de- 
scribed, that people shall remain one; and if the party that is 
nominally called rebel, — the term I don't use in respect to them 
at all, — if that party shall triumph, then I will transfer my 
allegiance to that party ; not as a party, but as the legitimate 

* In a report, made as late as September, 1862, by a New York committee, 
composed of Dr. Francis Lieber and others, I find tbis passage : — " The present 
corps of ambulance-drivers is largely composed of the most brutal and demo- 
ralized men in the army. When left to act on their own responsibility, many 
throw aside all humanity and decency, and treat the wounded with barbarous 
cruelty and neglect. 

"The cruel neglect of wounded men, after the late battle of Manassas, only 
too truly illustrates what has occurred after every battle of this Rebellion, 
and what will inevitably recur at every future battle, unless a thorough 
change be instituted. Hundreds of wounded men wei-e reported to the Sur- 
geon-General as still remaining with their wounds undressed, lying on the 
bare ground, exposed to the sun, and cold, and storm, days after the conflict 
■was over. The sufferings of those brave men can never be told, and never 
half realized. Many died from neglect, and many more will die because 
relief was so long in coming." 



25 

government of the United States." These are not my words, 
nor words of the class of thinkers to which I am supposed to 
belong. They are the bold expression of the inner thought of 
an eminent man of high intelligence and extended forecast; and 
who shall say that there is not a wide sympathy throughout the 
North which some day may find fearful utterance ? Then may 
come anarchy and internecine strife ; then comes to us our share 
of those awful miseries which now afflict Kentucky and Ten- 
nessee and Missouri, where brother is literally armed against 
brother, and child against parent. 

These are solemn, perhaps perilous, truths, and I write them 
with hesitation ; but they have struck me deeply and painfully, 
and my task is to write the truth. They imply, I am quite 
aw^, a distrust of the permanence and genuineness of the pre- 
sent excitement in the North, and a want of confidence in what 
is now known as Northern patriotism, — comprising in that word 
not merely transient enthusiasm, but the elements of official 
integrity and public virtue. I regret to say I have no such 
confidence ; and the conviction which most depresses me, and 
makes me turn sadly away from any hope of remedy, is, that 
there will be no anchorage when the storm is over. Let any 
one look back on the legislative history of most of the Northern 
States for the last twenty years, — each year worse than the one 
that went before,— and, if he care for truth, he will admit what 
I have said. And if it be contended that this rich iniquity, 
running through every branch of Administration, is but the 
canker of a long peace, let him look to the record of war, its 
catalogue of rascality and peculation, its novel nomenclature 
of crime, its 'shoddy,' its gun and blanket and ship contracts, 
and say if it is any better in war than in peace. The Indiana 
bond forgery occurred in the very agony of the war, and was 
concealed, if not compounded, in order to protect Federal credit, 
and not to discourage subscriptions to the loans of the Govern- 
ment ; and will any man, the veriest optimist who lives, tell 
me that in his conscience he looks with faith to the payment- 
even to the extent of its appalling interest— of the war debt, 
which we are rolling up so fast,— its thousands, or hundreds of 



26 

millions, funded and unfunded,— without counting the millions 
by-and-by for claims and damages and pensions, or the con- 
tingent cost of negro deportation and colonization? It is a 
grave subject, this of public credit, on which no one should 
talk lightly. .Its abuse and its disparagement are alike, though 
not equally, mischievous. But the fear and the belief of every 
thoughtful man must at this moment be that, unless some limit 
to ne^'w debt be soon imposed, when pay-day comes there will be 
a race among the States of the North as to further disintegra- 
tion, and an effort in this way to escape from the overpowering 
burthen of desperate indebtedness. If things go on as they are 
now doing, there will be no law by that time to guard contracts 
and pecumary rights. Foreign capitalists see this; and, from 
violations of the Constitution in one direction, draw the nalliral 
inference that it will not avail as a security in another. The 
home victims of passionate credulity will awaken to this reality 
by-and-by, and those who have stabbed the Constitution, and their 
apologists,' will have no right to complain if the lawlessness they 
have'imtiated returns to plague its inventors in the form of 
gigantic repudiation or bankruptcy. 



* It was well said by Mr. Seymour, just before the New York election, that 
..The wei.^ht of annual taxation will severely test the loyalty of the people. 
Eepudiation of our financial obligations would cause disorder and endless 
moral evils. But pecuniary rights will never be held more sacred than per- 
sonal rights. Repudiation of the Constitution involves the repudiation of 
national debts, and of the guarantees of rights of property, of person and 
of conscience - • If ^e begin a war upon the compromises of the 

Constitution, we must go through with it. It contains many restraints upon our 
natural rights. It may be asked by what right do the six small ^ew England 
States, with a population less than that of New York, enjoy six times its 
power in the Senate, which has become the controlling branch of he Govern- 
Lnt ' By what natural right do these six States, with their small population 
and their limited territories, balance the power of New York, Pennsylvania^ 
Ohio, Illinois, Indiana, and Michigan? The vast debt growing out of this 
war will give rise to new and angry discussions. It will be held almost ex- 
Tusively iu a few Atlantic States. Look upon the map of the Union and 
1 how small is the territory in which it will be owned We are to be 
divided into debtor and creditor States, and the last will have a vast pre- 
ponderance of power and strength. Unfortunately, there is no taxation upon 
Lis national debt, and its share is thi-own off upon other property. It la 



27 

This sounds like despair. It is kindi'ed to it ; and it is what 
every thinking man feels. Even thus despondent, I am quite 
willing, within my limited sphere, to act, to bear my share of 
the burthen, however heavy, and scrupulously to obey the law. 
Hence it is that, even in this hour of gloom, I yet cling to the 
faith embodied in the Philadelphia resolutions of January, 
1861, — that possibly the independent or concurrent action of 
the great Middle States, swayed by a sentiment of local fidelity, 
— especially the action of Pennsylvania, — may be invoked to 
save us, not from present disunion, for that cannot be averted, 
but from the anarchy which is at hand, — closer than we imagine, 
— or from some new form of consolidated government alien 
to our habits and education, which is sure to be conjured out 
of the seething cauldron of civil war. 

In common with all considerate men, I look forward 
with deep solicitude to the elections which are to occur this 
autumn. Should the thirteen voting States exhibit a unani- 
mous revolt from the policy of the Lincoln government, it may 
in some mode, inscrutable, I admit, to my perplexed vision, lea,d 
to a revival or restoration of the Union. It assuredly will, 
to a termination of this bloody war. No Administration can 
resist such a warning or stand against such an alienated 
constituency. But it is well to look to the alternative result : 
of a divided North, — divided, I mean, in opinion, — with New 
York and New England, or even isolated New Endand, votinar 
one way, and the great Middle States another. Proud, then, 
may be the position, solemn the responsibility, of those who 
live in the belt of territory extending from the Northern line 
of Pennsylvania and the Lakes to the Potomac and Ohio, — 
from the Atlantic to the Mississippi, — citizens of the great 
central sovereignties. New Jersey (bravest and truest of them 
all) and Pennsylvania, Ohio, Indiana, and Illinois, if, resisting 

held where many of the Government contracts have been executed, and where, 
in some instances, gross frauds have been practised. It is held largely where 
the Constitution gives a disproportionate share of political power. With all 
these elements of discord, is it wise to assail constitutional laws or bring 
authority into contempt?" 



28 

the blandishments and the threats of Executive authority, they 

shall assert by their votes loyalty to the Constitution in ita 
strictest sense and closest obligation, and their determination 
to arrest the raging course of fanaticism, and a resolution that 
the tide of aggressive war shall sweep over them no longer. 
The Middle States may save themselves, if they will. 

W. B. REED. 

Chestxut Hill, near Philadelphia, August 14, 1862. 

The text of the preceding pages was written at the time it 
is dated. Three months have since rolled by, and we are no 
nearer a military result than we were then. One hundred 
thousand Northern men — or,, on an average, since the 14th of 
August, more than a tiiousand a day, gathered in fearful heaps 
— have died, or been sent sick or wounded home., The 
funded national debt, — to say nothing of local indebtedness, — 
growing at the rate of sixty thousand dollars every waking 
and sleeping hour, reaches now to some uncertain line between 
six hundred and sixteen hundred millions. Pennsylvania's 
share of the Federal interest alone, counting ti^e Confederate 
States back again in the Union, is more than half of the prin- 
cipal of her own debt at the beginning of the war. The pre- 
cious metals stiP fly openly or stealthily away, — the paper 
currency having sunk twenty per cent, in the last two months; 
and yet, as it seems, we are no nearer to restoration by the 
processes of war, no nearer to conquest, to subjugation, — 
certainly not to reconciliation and peace. A bloody victory to- 
morrow will bring us no nearer. A winter campaign wastes 
energy, but chilh no animosities. 

One or two supplementary remarks the lapse of time 
enables, and the course of public events requires, me to make. 
They are in part gloomy and in part consolatory. Tiae reader 
acquainted with my habits of thought may wonder why, in 
these pages of adverse criticism, I have not dwelt more on the 
infractions of personal rights and liberty which have occurred. 
It is not, I can truly say, from insensibility to their enormity, 
but rather because they have been so freely and boldly exposed 



2$ 

and discussed by others. There are two, however, affecting 
citizens of this Commonwealth, which I must, in passing, 
notice, though without elaborate comment or illustration. One 
is that of Mr. Winder, who for fourteen months has been 
imprisoned in a distant fortress on a simulated warrant of 
arrest,— which had it been genuine would have been illegal, — 
and who is still kept there, in flagrant defiance of adjudicated 
law.* The other is one which cries loudly for redress, and to 
which, as it seems to me, sufficient attention has not been paid. 
It is the more momentous because it involves the State author- 
ities in grave responsibility. On the 6th August, 1862, Jamea 
Wadsworth, of New York,— a Federal military ofiicer and titular 
Governor of the District of Columbia,— came with a guard to the 
capital of Pennsylvania, and, without warrant or authority of 
law, seized at night, and carried away to prison out of the 
State, four well-known and respectable and, as the result 
showed, innocent citizens, and this, too, under the very eye of 
the Governor and his Cabinet. They were taken, imprisoned, 
and discharged, and, so far as the public is apprized, no one 
•word of remonstrance or protest, or even intercession, has 



* Mr. Winder and his fellow-prisoners were first immured at Fprt Lafayette 
near New York, and thence removed to Fort Warren, on a remote island in 
Boston Harbor, where they now are. The historical reader may make the 
application of the following passage from Clarendon, referring to the im- 
prisonment of the 'sympathizers' of 1640:— "Their friends in the city found 
a line of communication with them. Hereupon the wisdom of the State 
thought fit that these infectious sores should breathe out their corruption in 
some air more remote from that catching city, and less liable to the contagion: 
and so, by an order of the lords of the council, Mr. Prynne was sent to a 
castle in the island of Jersey; Dr. Bastwick to Scilly; and Mr. Burton to 
Guernsey; where they remained unconsidered and, truly I think, unpitied 
(for they were men of no merit), for the space of two years, till the beginning 
of the present parliament." Then, adds the courtly historian, they were 
discharged and came to London, where they were received with enthusiasm, 
—•'whilst the Ministers of State, like men in an ecstasy surprised and 
amazed with several apparitions, had no speech or motion, as if having com- 
mitted such an excess of jurisdiction (as men upon surfeits are enjoined for 
a time to eat nothing) they had been prescribed to exercise no jurisdiction at 
all." — History of Rebellion, Book IIL p. 86. 



30 

been uttered in their behalf. Their wrong remains unredressed 
to this hour. 

Proudly, even in this hour of gloom, may we turn from this 
picture of individual wrong to that of great Commonwealths 
rising, as did Pennsylvania and Ohio and Indiana a month ago, 
and by unbought and unterrified suffrage speaking out in behalf 
of the ancient Constitution. It makes one hope against hope. 
As I write, the results of the elections North and East are not 
definitively known, but, be they what they may, I reiterate 
the hope I have already endeavoured to make intelligible, that 
while a united North may yet save us from the gulf, on the 
perilous edge of which we stand, yet should, in the providence 
of God, the spirit of topical fanaticism which has brought all this 
misery upon us still maintain its sway, it may be the destiny of 
these great Middle States to speak, and, if need be, to act in self- 
defence, and in maintenance of all that is left of Constitutional 
liberty in the fragmentary and shattered Union which survives. 
They may act together, or they may act separately. Within 
each of them is the perfect machinery of government ; and all 
that is wanted is an animating and practical spirit of local 
loyalty. It may be that one man can supply that spirit ; and 
it is in the hope that these fugitive words of earnest suggestion 
rather than of counsel may find an answer in the heart of 
the people, that they are given to the public. " How often," 
wrote a great man, amidst the awful social convulsions of the 
last century, — "how often has pubHc calamity been arrested on 
the very brink of ruin by the seasonable energy of a single 
man ! Have we no such man among us ? I am as sure as I 
am of my being that one vigorous mind, without office, without 
situation, without public functions of any kind (at the time 
when the want of such a thing is felt), — I say, one such man, 
confiding in the aid of God, and full of just reliance in his own 
fortitude, vigor, enterprise, and perseverance, would first draw 
to him some few like himself,— and then that multitudes, hardly 
thought to be in existence, would appear and troop about him." 

November 5, 1862. 



APPENDIX. 



It was my intention to collate a number of specimens of free 
speech in other countries in times of war ; but I shall content 
myself with the following very familiar ones : — 

In 1781, Mr. Pitt, speaking of the war of that day against 
"Eebellion," said, "The gentleman, in the warmth of his 
zeal, has called this a holy war. For my part, though I have 
more than once been reprehended severely for calling it a 
wicked or accursed war, I am persuaded, and I will affirm, that 
it is a most accursed, wicked, barbarous, cruel, unnatural, 
unjust, and diabolical war. The expense of it has been enor- 
mous, far beyond any former experience; and yet what has the 
nation received in return ? Nothing but a series of ineffective 
victories, or severe defeats, — victories only celebrated with tem- 
porary triumph over our brethren whom we would trample 
down, -or defeats which fill the land with mourning for the loss 
of dear and valuable relatives slain in the impious cause of 
enforcing unconditional submission. "Where is the man who, 
on reading the narrative of those bloody and well-fought con- 
tests, can refrain from lamenting the loss of so much blood 
shed in such a cause, or from weeping, on whatever side victory 
might be declared?" 

Earlier in the same civil war, in 1777, Burke wrote to the 
sheriffs of' Bristol : — 

"The poorest being that crawls on earth, contending to save 
himself from injustice and oppression, is an object respectable 
to God and men. But I cannot conceive any existence under 
heaven (which, in the depths of its wisdom, tolerates all sorts 
of things) that is more truly odious than an impotent, helpless 
creature, without civil wisdom or military skill, without a con- 
sciousness of any qualification for power, calling for battles 

31 



32 

wliicli he is not to fight, contending for a violent dominion he 
can never exercise, and satisfied to be himself miserable in 
order to render others wretched." 

In 1795, during the war with France, Mr. Fox said, "Say 
at once that a free Constitution is no longer suitable to us ; say 
at once, in a manly manner, that, upon an ample review of the 
state of the world, a free Constitution is not fit for you; con- 
duct yourselves at once as the senators of Denmark; lay down 
your freedom, and acknowledge and accept of despotism. But 
do not mock the understandings and feelings of mankind by 
telling the world that you are free, — by telling me that if, for the 
purpose of expressing my sense of the public administration of 
this country, of the calamities which this war has occasioned, 
I state a grievance, or make any declaration of my sentiments 
in a manner that may be thought seditious, I am to be sub- 
jected to penalties hitherto unknown to the law. Did ever free 
people meet so? Did ever a free state exist so? Good God 
Almighty ! is it possible the feelings of the people of this coun- 
try should be thus insulted?" 



1^ '"^0^ 



!^' 




^" 'i^^ 





0^ 




^^. *^T:- 






/ 
















- "^^'' :^^ 






^ 








^(^^ 


^' 


^ 






' o • 




"^ 






A"- -^ 














^ 


/ 




■^ 


0' 


« ,. 


O 


V 






°^ 


* 


,0 


•^ri. 












V' 
















v/* ^ 






K 


' » ' ti" 


"'^iJ~' 


; ■ #'% 






\:> 


'o , 


J 4 


A 








v-^ 








^j 


.*° 


•n^ 


^ ' 


..5 


4 



^i^' 






4: 




/>?^;. -^ 








v 













•r 



^. 



% 






"' J'... 









fe, 












•^t ■' -v . 



^J> 
















-^sc^ 



f 'O 'o . . * A 















\ 



,c 


















'A <. '- .. '' .0*" 









Oi-^ '^^ 






^O. 













